Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939-1945

'As gripping as any spy thriller, Hastings's achievement is especially impressive, for he has produced the best single volume yet written on the subject' Sunday Times'Authoritative, exciting and notably well written' Daily Telegraph'A serious work of rigourous and comprehensive history ... royally entertaining and readable' Mail on SundayIn 'The Secret War', Max Hastings examines the espionage and intelligence machines of all sides in World War II, and the impact of spies, code-breakers and partisan operations on events. Written on a global scale, the book brings together accounts from British, American, German, Russian and Japanese sources to tell the story of a secret war waged unceasingly by men and women often far from the battlefields but whose actions profoundly influenced the outcome.Returning to the Second World War for the first time since his best-selling 'All Hell Let Loose', Hastings weaves into a 'big picture' framework, the human stories of spies and intelligence officers who served their respective masters. Told through a series of snapshots of key moments, the book looks closely at Soviet espionage operations which dwarfed those of every other belligerent in scale, as well as the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park - the greatest intelligence achievement of the conflict - with many more surprising and unfamiliar tales of treachery, deception, betrayal and incompetence by spies of Axis, Allied or indeterminate loyalty.

'As gripping as any spy thriller, Hastings's achievement is especially impressive, for he has produced the best single volume yet written on the subject' Sunday Times'Authoritative, exciting and notably well written' Daily Telegraph'A serious work of rigourous and comprehensive history ... royally entertaining and readable' Mail on SundayIn 'The Secret..

A two-book collection of Max Hastings' bestselling works about the 20th century's most terrible global conflicts.'Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914': In this centenary year, Hastings' thrilling and also deeply moving account seeks to explain both how Europe plunged into what was then called 'The Great War', what befell the millions of people of many..

From the acclaimed military historian, a history of the outbreak of World War I: the dramatic stretch from the breakdown of diplomacy to the battles—the Marne, Ypres, Tannenberg—that marked the frenzied first year before the war bogged down in the trenches.In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings gives us a conflict different from the..

The Amazon History Book of the Year 2013 is a magisterial chronicle of the calamity that befell Europe in 1914 as the continent shifted from the glamour of the Edwardian era to the tragedy of total war.1914: a year of unparalleled change. The year that diplomacy failed, Imperial Europe was thrown into its first modernised warfare and white-gloved soldiers..

This is epic story of the last eight months of World War II in Europe by one of Britain's most highly regarded military historians, whose accounts of past battles John Keegan has described as worthy ';to stand with that of the best journalists and writers' (New York Times Book Review).In September 1944, the Allies believed that Hitler's army was beaten,..

Max Hastings is best known as an acclaimed journalist and military historian. But what is perhaps less well known is his love of the countryside and its pursuits, above all fishing and shooting, which he indulges as often as he can escape his urban working environment. In this classic selection of gentle, contemplative musings, Max Hastings shares some..

'His memoirs have ... honesty, pace and readability.' Jeremy PaxmanMax Hastings grew up with romantic dreams of a life amongst warriors. But after his failure as a parachute soldier in Cyprus in 1963, he became a journalist instead. Before he was 30 he had reported conflicts in Northern Ireland, Biafra, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Middle East, Cyprus, Rhodesia,..

Heroism in battle has been celebrated throughout history, yet it is one of the least understood virtues. What makes some men and women perform extraordinary deeds on the battlefield? What makes them risk their lives in the pursuit of victory?Max Hastings, one of our foremost military historians, has seen combat up close and written about it for decades...

By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing dramathat ended in Japan's utter devastationwas acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, air, and naval forces.In recounting these extraordinary events, Max Hastings draws..

From one of our finest military historians, a monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II and its deeply personal consequences. World War II involved tens of millions of soldiers and cost sixty million livesan average of twenty-seven thousand a day. For thirty-five years, Max Hastings has researched and written about..

From one of our finest military historians comes a monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II and its deeply personal consequences. World War II involved tens of millions of soldiers and cost sixty million lives-an average of twenty-seven thousand a day. For thirty-five years, Max Hastings has researched and written..

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. In this extensive history, preeminent military historian Max Hastings takes us back to the bloody, bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950. Using personal accounts from interviews with..